


Someone Like You

by Flowerparrish



Series: Clint Barton Bingo [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU - Clint isn't an Avenger, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Bingo Fill, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, this is soft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-02-28 17:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18761047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish
Summary: If you had asked Clint what he wanted from his life ten years ago, this, the routine of owning and running a coffee shop in Manhattan, would not have been it. Well, okay, the unlimited coffee part of it might have always been a dream of his, but the rest of it? He would have thought it lacking in adrenaline and adventure and a waste of his specialized skill set.He would’ve been right about that. And yet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks endlessly to the people who were supportive of and excited for me branching out into writing amerihawk, it made all the difference in the face of my uncertainty. Thanks also to Mar for beta-ing and catching things like me using entirely the wrong word at one point. <3 
> 
> This fic is set a hand-wavey year ish after The Avengers, in an AU timeline where Clint retired before the events of The Avengers movie occurred. (They still won, and the team still formed, but Clint was off owning a coffee shop and not involved.) Also, Darcy Lewis is in this fic, because I miss my girl Darcy and this fic is all about the 2012/2013 MCU/Avengers fandom nostalgia, as well as just general nostalgia for the era it's set in.

Clint is just finishing wiping down the counters— _ how  _ does dust always manage to settle overnight?—and stocking the pastry display case when the clock flicks over to 5 am. He slips around the corner of the bar to unlock the front doors, perfectly on time, not because there are going to be people lined up for coffee around the block or anything who will notice the difference of a couple of minutes, but because he's gotten very, very good at his routine.

If you had asked Clint what he wanted from his life ten years ago, this, the routine of owning and running a coffee shop in Manhattan, would not have been it. Well, okay, the unlimited coffee part of it  _ might  _ have always been a dream of his, but the rest of it? He would have thought it lacking in adrenaline and adventure and a waste of his specialized skill set.

He would’ve been right about that. And yet.

He loves Thanks a Latte, aka the dumbest, most punny name he could think of. It had made Natasha glare and Darcy laugh and that mattered more to him than the name itself. Beyond the dumb name, he loves the big windows that let in natural light, the light wood of the chairs and tables and booths, and the exposed brick next to walls papered white with small purple arrows on them. He loves the mismatched comfy chairs he’d found at various thrift stores around the city, worn and comfortable. And, surprisingly, he’s okay with the routine.

Natasha will never understand that part, how he could love something so simple and, at times,  _ boring,  _ but she calls him names in Russian and tries even his most terrible latte creations, so that’s fine, too.

Besides, he’s not  _ entirely  _ out of the loop. Natasha will keep secrets, but not always from Clint, and he knew what he was doing when he opened a coffee shop midway between Stark Tower and SHIELD’s New York headquarters. If he wasn’t trying to keep old lines of communication open, to trade over-priced lattes for harmless but still confidential information, he would’ve just opened a coffee shop in Brooklyn closer to where he lives.

So he knows when Steve Rogers moves into what was formerly Stark, and is now Avengers, Tower. But he doesn’t expect Steve Rogers himself to walk into Clint’s coffee shop half a week later, just after he opens the doors at 5 am.

He’s in running shorts and a tight t-shirt despite the morning chill, his running shoes dirty and beat to hell. The left one has a hole that Steve’s toes are almost poking out of, the kind of thing everyone would be exasperated about if Clint did it, but maybe Steve’s charm lets him get away with things like that.

“Good morning,” Clint calls out. He makes a point not to fawn over Steve, because that’s got to be annoying, especially before his morning coffee. “What can I get you?”

Steve stops a couple of feet away from the counter, looking up at the chalkboard that Clint changes frequently, based solely on his mood and his coffee experiments. “Do you have tea?”

Clint blinks. “I… do,” he says after a moment. “But that’s not really what I’m known for.”

“I’m not big on coffee,” Steve says, and Clint can feel his teenage idolization of the man falling to pieces.

“What kind of tea would you like?” Clint asks, because he’s a professional, damnit. Sometimes. Even if someone has come into his  _ coffee  _ shop and had the balls to say they don’t like coffee. It’s not like he’s feeling  _ personally  _ betrayed, or anything ridiculous like that.

“Earl Gray?”

“The most boring of teas?” The words have left Clint’s mouth before he can stop himself. Oh well, in for a penny… “Really?”

“Really,” Steve agrees, and Clint’s definitely not mistaking the faint smile on his face.

Clint shrugs and starts assembling the drink in a paper to-go cup. “Any sugar? Honey?”

“No, thank you.”

Christ. Someone needs to teach this poor misguided man to love himself.

That’s not Clint’s job, though. Clint’s job is to slip a protective sleeve over the cup and hand it to Steve. “That’ll be four fifty.”

Steve hands him a five dollar bill and drops the quarters Clint gives him back in the tip jar. His smile seems genuine when he says, “Thanks. Have a nice day.”

“You too, man,” Clint says. Once Steve’s gone, Clint shakes his head, a little awe-struck and a little rueful.

What a weird start to the day.

\--

When Darcy comes in at noon, he says, “You’ll never guess who was here this morning?” She raises an eyebrow, because she thinks she’s above guessing and she knows he’ll tell her anyway. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to whine about it, though. “You’re no fun,” he complains. “Why did I hire you, anyway?”

“Because you needed someone who could put up with weird shit and SHIELD agents,” she points out, looping her apron over her head. She heads over to the iPod dock he’d hooked up to the sound system just for her, so she can play her playlists. They’re possibly better than whatever Pandora decides is acoustic today, anyway.

“And you wanted to work somewhere that let you threaten people with a taser,” he counters.

“True,” she agrees, patting the pocket of her jeans. He’s tried to tell her that that’s  _ not  _ the safest or best way to carry a taser, but she won’t listen, so he’s decided that whatever happens is  _ not  _ his fault. “So who came in?” she finally stoops to ask.

“Steve Rogers.”

She’s Darcy Lewis, and she’s met an alien who is also a Norse god with magical powers, so her eyes only bug out a little bit. Clint understands; Steve Rogers is so high on a pedestal in the American culture that there’s very little he could do to prove he’s just a guy. Once you’ve been idolized and memorialized like that, there’s no going back.

“Holy shit,  _ Captain America  _ was in our coffeeshop?!” Darcy keeps her scream to a whisper, which Clint appreciates, not only for the sake of his hearing aids, which don’t love it when she screeches, but also for the sake of the customers  _ and  _ Steve’s pseudo-anonymity.

Okay, and it’s also a little bit selfish, but Steve probably won’t come back if word gets out that he’s been here. Clint really, really wants to see if Steve’s going to come back.

“One, it’s my coffee  shop,” Clint points out. Darcy waves that away over-exuberantly, like she’s trying to shoo away a fly. “Second, he wasn’t, like, in uniform or anything. Just Steve Rogers in running shorts.”

Darcy fans herself. “Damn, that sounds like a wet dream come to life.”

Clint kind of agrees with her—it’s not like Captain America didn’t star in a number of his teenage wank sessions—but he swats at her with a towel anyway. “If he comes back, we’re going to treat him just like anyone else.”

Darcy raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, okay,” she says, and what she clearly means by that is  _ there is no way in hell I’m not going to try to jump Captain America’s bones.  _ Clint regrets that he knows her this well.

“I mean it,” he tries, but he already knows it’s a lost cause.

“Uh-huh,” Darcy agrees, before shoving him away from the register so she can take over the talking to people and he can focus on making coffee for the lunch rush that’s about to begin. “Whatever you say, boss.”

\--

Steve doesn’t come back the next morning. Clint tells himself he’s not disappointed. (Even he knows he’s lying.)

\--

Steve doesn’t come back in for the next few days, and Clint’s just about accepted that it was a fluke, when suddenly he appears, gracing Clint’s coffee shop with his absurdly handsome face and short running shorts.

Clint kind of thinks he might have gotten more attractive somehow in the last few days, or maybe Clint’s—eidetic—memory is just not up to the task of representing the reality of Steve’s level of hotness.

It’s six thirty am and there are actually other customers around, some of whom are awake enough to stare at Steve and some of whom definitely have no idea what’s going on around them, much less that Captain America is behind them in line. Clint silently prays that no one asks Steve for an autograph, because he’d really like it this could become a habit, so that he could reliably start his days pretending not to stare at Steve’s stupidly perfect face.

Adele is softly crooning about giving up on love in the background, which is 1) not to Clint’s taste in music (although he will admit it fits the coffeehouse vibe he’s striving for), and 2) not boding well for the attraction he’s got to Steve. It might even be a sign from the universe that he should stop lusting after Steve Rogers, but it’s not like Clint needed the universe to tell him that. Maybe once upon a time, if he’d joined the Avengers Initiative like Fury had begun hinting he wanted Clint to, that would have been a thing.

But he didn’t. He’d respectfully asked to retire, instead, because he was just a guy with a bow and arrow and really good aim, and he didn’t look forward to getting himself killed fighting with and—more importantly—against super-powered individuals.

Nowadays, he’s just a well-informed coffee shop owner. He’s grown to like his new lot in life—he sleeps through the night more often than not, these days—but, more to the point, it isn’t like he’s anything special. He doesn’t have anything that could pull Steve Rogers, and while that  _ almost  _ doesn’t feel worth the trade, that’s one hundred percent just his dick and his ego speaking. His brain is well aware that he made the right choice—for himself, even. Seeing Clint do something good for himself must have been what convinced Coulson to back him up on the decision, because Clint has no idea why else the agent would have done so. But then, maybe he was just very invested in the free coffees Clint had always given him. He’d always loved Clint’s coffee.

The thought of Coulson, as always, makes Clint sad, but he is getting better at powering through the grief.

He dredges up a smile for Steve—Coulson’s hero, and man, Clint’s just maudlin now, and Adele  _ is not helping— _ and asks, “What can I get for you today?”

“What do you recommend?”

Clint considers. “What flavors do you like?”

Steve seems thrown by the question. “Someone got me to try a peppermint mocha at Starbucks once,” he says after a minute’s thought. His nose scrunches up adorably. “I hated it.”

“That’s a start,” Clint agrees. “Nothing too sweet, then.”

“No,” Steve agrees. He glances behind him, but there’s no one new in line, so he relaxes his stance somewhat. “When I was growing up, coffee wasn’t made to be sweet, it was made to keep you awake when you were seconds from falling down.”

Clint nods, considering how growing up in the Depression would have made access to sugar and even excess milk a luxury. “Makes sense,” he said, rather than give away that he knew how out of time Steve was. “Subtle flavors, then, maybe? How are you with nuts?”

Steve shrugged. “All of my allergies went away when—” He caught himself. “I mean, I grew out of them, so I’m good to try anything.”

Clint gives him a suspicious glance just for the hell of it. “You say that now, but I don’t want to deal with a lawsuit if I almost kill you.” He grins after a second, though, so Steve will know he’s joking.

Steve laughs. “No lawsuits, I promise.”

Clint narrows his eyes for a minute, as if he’s deciding whether or not to trust Steve, before he nods decisively. “We’ll try a hazelnut roast, then, see how you like that.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees easily. “How much do I owe you?”

Clint waves him off. “Nah, this one’s on the house. You might hate it, after all.” Steve opens his mouth to protest, Clint can see him gearing up to it, and Clint cuts him off. “Seriously, you can pay next time.”

Steve blinks for a minute, clearly processing that he’s been derailed. “Oh, is that how it is?” he asks.

Clint shrugs. “Good business practices,” he says blithely, like he does this for everyone. Of course, he sort of  _ does,  _ but those are people he knows. “Keeps people coming back.”

“I’ll have to see if the coffee’s any good before I know I’m coming back,” Steve points out.

“The tea wasn’t good enough for you?” Clint asks with a grin while he moves to assemble the pour over to make just a cup for Steve. Marginally less wasteful than making a pot, and it’ll be stronger, which might make it more similar to Depression era coffee—Clint’s not sure, but it’s a risk he’ll take. Stronger is easier to fix than weak, after all, with a splash of milk or even some water to dilute it.

“It wasn’t terrible,” Steve says after a moment.

Clint laughs. “I tried to warn you that it’s not what I’m known for.”

“You did,” Steve agrees.

Silence falls between them, but it’s not a heavy silence, so Clint doesn’t mind. The song now is by some British band Darcy likes, so he at least recognizes it in a vague way. Jury’s still out how he feels about it, but he thinks maybe it’s not half bad.

He finishes Steve’s cup, sliding a sleeve over the to go cup and popping a lid on top. “Here you are,” he tells Steve, handing it over. “If you hate it, we’ll just have to try something else next time.”

Steve seems to study Clint for a moment. The silence becomes decidedly more heavy under the weight of Steve’s scrutiny. “Next time,” he agrees.

He smiles at Clint once more before he turns and leaves, purposeful strides taking him out the door and back into the early morning.

Clint slumps against the counter. “Fuck,” he says aloud.

The nearest customer, a woman who was alert enough to recognize Steve and definitely kept one ear on their conversation, says, “You got that right.”

Clint nods and takes a moment to revel in the fact that he had a  _ whole conversation  _ with Captain America himself before he shoves away his inner fanboy and cleans up.

Darcy’s not going to  _ believe  _ him when she comes in.

**

“I don’t  _ believe  _ you,” Darcy whisper-shouts. “You didn’t even sneak a picture for me? Get his autograph?”

The Beatles are playing in the background—surprisingly a Darcy pick, because they’re cool again or something—and the sun is shining. It is, generally, a beautiful day.

Clint is also predisposed to being in a good mood, because he had a  _ whole conversation  _ with Steve Rogers this morning and didn’t fuck it up beyond saving. He had made Steve Rogers  _ laugh. _

Darcy is unimpressed, hands on her hips as she tries to stare him down despite being generally smaller overall. It’s almost working; it would be, that is, if he didn’t know her well enough to know she’s actually  _ very  _ impressed.

“C’mon, Darce,” he wheedles. He bumps her shoulder with his own, and the grin she’s fighting almost breaks free. “I’m sure if I don’t scare him away you’ll get to meet him one day.”

“As if I’d take a morning shift,” she scoffs. “No way.”

“Well, maybe you’ll get lucky,” Clint suggests. “It’s not a rule that he has to come in the mornings.”

Darcy’s eyes narrow. “You’re placating me. You’re trying to distract me from my plan to climb Captain America like a tree.”

“What, me? Never!” Clint casts her a very convincing scandalized look. “I’m offended, really.”

“Sure you are,” she grumbles and pouts. It lasts about twenty seconds, and then she’s bored of that and on to the next thing. “You know, it would be good for business if we got branded Captain America’s favorite coffee shop.”

“And then Captain America would stop coming here,” Clint points out.

“Not if you find him the right coffee monstrosity.”

“Well, give it time, then.”

She huffs. She sighs. She crosses her arms. She tosses her hair.

He ignores her. She’s pretty much the little sister he never had, but he did have a brother, and he knows how to ignore a sibling when they’re being annoying. Well, he mostly knows from how Barney used to ignore Clint when he was being annoying, but still.

She bangs around noisily, making what looks like a strawberry and white chocolate flavored blended iced latte—Clint would  _ not  _ call them frappes or frappuccinos or whatever else McDonalds and Starbucks and every other chain called them, but he could admit that the full titles got cumbersome. By the time she was done with the task, one of her catchy pop songs had come on and the bulk of her annoying behavior had passed like a storm.

“Okay,” she said, popping a straw into the top of her cup. “You can keep him to yourself, whatever. See if I care.”

“Okay,” Clint agreed. “Sounds good to me.”

She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.

Some days he wondered what he’d gotten himself into.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Mar for reading and cheerleading and being endlessly enthusiastic about this fic! And thanks to everyone who commented on the first chapter, y'all made branching out into a new pairing so worthwhile. <3

When aliens had attacked New York, they’d destroyed most of the area around Stark Tower. Clint’s shop wasn’t ruined—although it probably didn’t pass OSHA guidelines right off the bat, either—but all of his workers had promptly quit, the bravest ones freely admitting that it was too close to the crazy magnet that was the tower for their comfort.

Clint had shrugged, put the money he’d saved up into refurbishing and reopening the shop, and tried to hire.

No one was biting.

He was going a little crazy, open in the morning and early afternoon only, by himself every day, when he heard through his gossip grapevine that Darcy Lewis was becoming a hazard to herself and others.

Apparently, she was enough in the game, in that she was BFFs with Thor and had prior experience with Loki, to be worth the effort of SHIELD keeping an eye on her. She was working with Jane Foster, who was consulting with SHIELD about the wormhole that had been opened above Manhattan, and she was generally bored and twitchy and ten seconds from tazing the next SHIELD agent who snuck up on her.

Clint personally thought that was their fault for sneaking up on her, and he asked for her contact info. All it cost him was a month of free croissants, and when he closed up shop that afternoon, he made a call.

He remembered Darcy from the FUBAR op that had been Thor and New Mexico, and luckily she’d remembered him. She said she wanted to be in New York if Jane needed her, and she wanted to be adjacent to the crazy but not _in_ the crazy, and all of that summed up to something Clint could relate to.

“Want to be the assistant manager of my coffee shop?” he’d asked her, and after some haggling over pay and fucking stock options—she wouldn’t be Darcy if she wasn’t ruthless and shockingly intelligent—she’d accepted.

Now here she was, nearly a year later, practically running the marketing side of the business—the part Clint had never been good at, really, and where Darcy truly excelled. He couldn’t imagine the place without her.

But he was not introducing her to Rogers any time soon, because that was a recipe for disaster. And embarrassment. And a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Just. No.

\--

It’s just Clint’s luck, then, that the next time Steve Rogers comes in, it’s just after the lunch rush. Darcy had clocked in at eleven, and Clint’s there until at least four, so when Steve comes in around two they’re trading gossip—a mix of SHIELD, Stark Industries, and celebrities—while they straighten up and wipe down the counters and clean out the machines. It’s generally their downtime, with only the people who are dedicated to sitting in a booth reading or working on laptops and ordering coffee every couple of hours to justify their presence still there. Every once in a while, the door jingles as someone breezes in to order before breezing back out.

The door jingles and Clint doesn’t immediately look up from the counter he’s scrubbing at, trying to get a specific spot of spilled coffee wiped clean. His head shoots up when he hears Darcy’s intake of breath, though, and is at once panicked and consumed with the specific Captain America themed lust he’s becoming distressingly accustomed to.

Steve is wearing beige slacks and a plaid shirt, both of which are too tight to contain the sheer magnitude of him, as well as sunglasses and a baseball cap. It is possibly the worst disguise Clint has ever seen.

Panic wins out over brain-melting lust—barely—and Clint bumps Darcy away from the cash register. She rolls her eyes but allows it, heading over to lounge by the espresso machines in an attempt to pretend she’s getting ready to make whatever drink Steve orders, when really all she does is glue her eyes to Steve.

“Hi,” Clint greets Steve as he approaches. “No morning run?”

“Not today,” Steve answers. There’s a twist to his mouth when he half-smiles that Clint doesn’t know him well enough to read.

“How was the coffee last time?”

“Not bad.”

Clint waits, but that’s apparently all Steve is going to give him to work with. “Too strong? Need anything added to it? Any opinions on the flavor?”

Steve shrugs. “It was fine.”

Clint groans dramatically, part for show and part because Steve is actually killing him here. “You’re impossible,” he accuses. “Just for that, I’m giving you a latte.”

Steve scrunches up his nose. It may be the cutest thing Clint’s ever seen, and Clint has seen _a lot_ of cute animal videos on Youtube. “Aren’t those usually sweet?”

“Usually they’re flavored, or people add sugar,” Clint tells him. “Espresso is bitter. Milk cuts the bitterness some, but it’s not naturally very sweet.”

Steve looks unconvinced. “If you say so.”

“Trust me,” Clint says. “I’ll put an extra shot of espresso in and everything just for you, and if you hate it I’ll give you boring plain coffee.”

Steve’s dubious expression wavers. “I guess,” he relents.

Clint pumps a fist. “I’ll take it.” He turns to Darcy and says, “Large latte with skim milk and an extra shot of espresso, Darce.”

“I literally heard your whole conversation,” she points out, but moves to do as he’s asked. He ignores her.

“How much do I owe you?” Steve asks, eyeing Darcy like she’s a snake about to bite. The man clearly has good instincts, even if he’s shit at going unnoticed.

“You can’t pay me until you’ve tried it,” Clint says. “The cost of a latte and a coffee are completely different.”

Steve frowns. “You said I could pay this time,” he points out. “And what will you do if I don’t like it? Throwing it away would be wasteful.”

“Agreed. I’ll just drink it myself. I, unlike you, appreciate coffee in all forms.”

Steve continues frowning at Clint, although his general glowering demeanor lessened at Clint’s words. “I’m still paying,” he insists.

Clint rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says, and he rings it up. “Six dollars.”

Steve hands him a ten and once again shoves his change—four whole dollars—into the tip jar. Clint rolls his eyes. “You sure are stubborn.”

Steve ducks his head a bit. “Uh, yeah, I get that a lot.”

Clint shrugs. “It’s good to have principles.”

Before he can struggle to think of what to say next, Darcy appears beside him, holding out the drink. “Here you go,” she says, her tone some weird amalgam of chipper and annoyed. “I’m Darcy, by the way.”

Steve takes the drink in his left hand and holds out his right hand to offer a handshake. Darcy’s eyes go wide, but she takes it and shakes his hand. “I’m Steve,” he says, hesitating slightly on the name. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

Darcy’s cheeks are bright red. Clint has never seen Darcy flustered. A Norse god who is actually a space alien fell from the sky right in front of her, and he doubts she was this flustered. He’s kind of enjoying it. “Nice to meet you too,” she says, all of the annoyance gone from her tone. She blinks and then turns to Clint long enough to say, “I’m going to go do inventory,” and then she escapes into the back store room.

“She okay?” Steve asks, smile slightly dimmed. “Did I say something wrong?”

Clint shakes his head. “Nah, she’s just…” He can’t think of an excuse. “We’re all kind of big fans around here.”

Steve’s expression stays the same in that way that means he’s frozen it to hide his true reaction. “Oh,” is all he says.

“I’m not gonna tell anyone who you are,” Clint says after a moment of awkward silence. “As far as I’m concerned, when you come in here, you’re just Steve. Darcy knows that, too.”

“Oh,” Steve says again, but his expression unfreezes slightly. “Why?”

Clint shrugs. “It’s gotta be annoying being recognized everywhere you go. I’d go crazy. And, no offense, but you’re pretty shit at disguises.”

Steve winces. “Yeah,” he agrees. “They never seem to work.”

Clint shrugs. “Give it time. The best disguise is acting like you belong somewhere. If you’re trying to go unnoticed, your body language is all wrong, and people pick up on that kind of thing really fast.”

“I’m not really good at acting like I belong here,” Steve admits after a moment. “It’s been a year, and I know what to expect from the future, now, but it’s…” He trails off and shrugs.

“It’s still the future?” Clint offers.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees quietly.

Clint nods. “I can’t say I’ve been there, but I’ve heard time helps most things get better. Well, time and friends.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” Steve acknowledges. “A little short on the other front, though.”

It’s a little too close to the “all my friends are dead” meme, which Clint used to love and is now desperately hoping Steve hasn’t seen. “What about the Avengers?”

“They’re great,” Steve says instantly, like it’s his ingrained response. Clint raises an eyebrow. Steve sighs. “They really are great,” he says. “But I haven’t been back in New York long. They’re not like friends, not yet, they’re just…”

“I get it,” Clint promises. He fiddles with the tip jar just to give his hands something to do before he meets Steve’s eyes and offers, “Well, you could always try being friends with me.”

A genuine smile crosses Steve’s face, one that isn’t huge but does reach his eyes. “I guess there’s no harm in trying,” he says after a moment. “Even if you do make terrible tea.”

Clint rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “At least try your coffee before you disparage my drink making abilities.”

Steve glances down at the latte in his hand like he’d forgotten about it. He visibly braces himself and takes a sip.

“Well?”

“Not bad,” Steve says. Clint’s only partially gratified when he takes another sip.

“We need to expand your vocabulary when it comes to coffee,” Clint tells him. “No coffee I make is bad. It’s just a given. Does bad coffee even exist? I’m not convinced it does.”

“It does. It comes from Starbucks.”

Clint grins. “Savage. I like it. I guess, your incorrect opinions on most coffee aside, you can stick around.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he also smiles that same genuine smile. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“See you around, Steve,” Clint says.

They are friends now, or something like it, so Clint manfully does not ogle Steve’s ass as he walks away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks endlessly to Mar for beta-ing and cheerleading!!

When Darcy emerges from the back room, some fifteen or so minutes after Steve made his departure, Clint smirks at her and enjoys the way she glares at him in return.

“You ran away from Captain America,” he teases. He can’t not tease her; she’s like his little sister, and it’s his duty and his right to tease her about this.

“I did not,” she protests. “Maybe I was just being a good bro and giving you space to continue flirting like your life depended on it.”

He’d been about to hug her, but now he doesn’t think he will, actually. “Excuse you,” he splutters. “I was not flirting.”

She rolls her eyes. “Clint. Honey. Sweetheart. Boo. You were absolutely flirting. You were flirting harder than I flirt at every hot person who stops in for coffee. You were practically sky-writing your intentions. It was very obvious.”

Her words are flippant, but her eyes are serious. He’s going to replay their conversation in his head later, see if maybe she’s got a point, but he’s not going to give her the satisfaction of knowing it. “Whatever. Whether or not I was flirting, that doesn’t change the fact that you ran away and hid.”

She groans and crosses her arms. “He’s just so earnest,” she whines. “It makes me all itchy. I’m allergic to sincerity, you know this.”

Clint laughs. “Well, get over it, princess, because it looks like he’s a regular now.”

She sighs. “I guess the ass makes up for it.”

“Don’t forget the pecs and the too-tight shirts,” Clint points out. “You have to appreciate the entire package.”

“Oh, I’d appreciate him any day,” Darcy says with a low whistle. “The hives would be worth it.”

Clint laughs and shakes his head. “You’re a menace,” he tells her. “Go take your lunch break before you run out of time to take it.”

“Like you wouldn’t stay late,” she scoffs. “You live here.”

“I do not. I live in a shithole in Brooklyn. I would much prefer to live here.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” Darcy says with a complete lack of sympathy. “Find an apartment in Manhattan. Save yourself the commute.”

“Never,” Clint says with a scoff. “Now, go.”

She takes off her apron and blows him a kiss. He rolls his eyes and pokes her in the side when she passes just to make her squeal.

“I hate you!” she calls back over her shoulder on her way out.

“I know!” he calls back, shaking his head as she disappears out into the sunlit day.

She’s a one-woman hurricane, that’s for sure, and when she gets her feet back under her, Steve Rogers isn’t going to have a clue what hit him.

\--

Steve comes in at the regular time the next morning, but for once Clint isn’t really able to appreciate his glory.

“You okay?” Steve asks when he makes it to the counter, one eyebrow raised and looking like he’s trying to decide if he’s going to be sympathetic or judgmental.

“Fine,” Clint says, because he totally is, okay? One relatively sleepless night won’t kill him—it shouldn’t even bother him. He used to be a secret agent! He could go days on a few sporadic hours of sleep. Apparently, he’s gone soft.

Ugh. Whatever. He works in a coffee shop, so he’ll just keep downing ridiculously strong cups of coffee until he feels human or goes into cardiac arrest.

“What can I get you?” Clint asks belatedly, realized that that’s, you know, a thing. A thing he’s supposed to be doing. To run his, y’know, small business.

“Yeah, you really seem fine,” Steve says, sarcasm thick in his voice. It somehow, inexplicably, makes his Brooklyn accent sound like honey—and there, see! Clint’s not so far gone he can’t appreciate that.

“I just didn’t get much sleep,” Clint admits. “One of my neighbor’s kids was sick and needed to go to the hospital, and she needed someone to watch the other kid. I could have slept, but, well…” He grimaces and gestures at the hearing aids in his ears. “I shouldn’t sleep with them in, and I wanted to be able to hear in case she needed something.”

She had, in fact, woken up no less than three times throughout the night—every time Clint was about to fall asleep, in fact, hearing aids be damned, like she could sense it—crying for her mom. By the time Clint had been able to hand her back to her exhausted mother at three am, there was no point in sleeping.

He’s kind of zoned out, a little bit lost in thought but mostly just absent, but his attention is roughly jerked back to the present when Steve says, “That was a nice thing for you to do.”

Clint shrugs. “Yeah, well, we’ve got to help where we can, don’t we? It’s fine. I’ll cut out early today once Darcy gets in.” He ignores the soft smile on Steve’s face, the genuine praise that Clint is entirely uncomfortable accepting, and says, “But you’re not here for me anyway. What kind of coffee do you want?”

“Are you too tired to surprise me?” Steve asks.

Clint laughs and winces, the movement a little too much for his throbbing headache. “I have a spreadsheet of ideas, Steve. A spreadsheet.” He does, too—it is one of the few things that gives him great joy, introducing new coffee to Steve Rogers in an attempt to show him what he’s been missing out on, drinking tea.

Steve looks wary—as he should—but nods, game face on. “Do your worst,” he challenges.

Clint rolls his eyes, fond. “You say that like it will be awful when we both know I have a vested interest in finding something you like enough to keep coming back.”

“The way you keep trying not to charge me for my drinks, I can’t see what it would be.”

Clint gasps loud, hand coming up to cover his heart in mock surprise and horror. “Did Captain America just sass me?” he demands, because there’s no one in the shop yet this morning to overhear.

Steve looks around himself before turning back to Clint. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t see Captain America here.”

Clint narrows his eyes. “I’m on to you,” he says. “Steve Rogers is secretly a sarcastic little shit—I can’t wait to tell everyone.”

“No one will believe you,” Steve warns him.

Clint leaves half his attention on their banter and sets about pulling together a coffee for Steve. “No, you’re right,” he agrees. “You’re too good at that ‘gee, shucks’ attitude. But I see through your innocent act.”

“Someone had to eventually,” Steve laments, but his voice sounds warm and betrays the smile Clint bets is on his face. “Guess if it had to be anyone, it might as well be you.”

That’s a little too close to things Clint doesn’t want to think about, things like the part of him that can’t believe Steve Rogers would want to be his friend, because, what? So he just laughs and tosses out a, “you say that now,” and finishes the coffee.

“Here,” he says, offering the cup to Steve. “Try this.”

Steve raises an eyebrow but tries the coffee. “It’s… fine?”

Clint groans. “It’s okay, we’ll figure this out. Was this better or worse than the last one?”

“If I say the same, are you going to punch me?”

“I just might,” Clint tells him solemnly.

“It’s different, then,” Steve says. “The flavor of this is nice.”

Clint despairs at the world for saddling him with this impossible task. “I guess I’ll work with that,” he allows after a few moments of asking any higher powers that might be listening why this is his life. “That’s chicory coffee, anyway, if case you ever want to order it again. Not that I have a lot of it, but it’s like,” he waves a hand vaguely, “a thing. I should stop talking now?”

“You should sleep,” Steve advises.

“I should drink more coffee,” Clint counters, and spins to make his way over to the coffee pot and pour more for himself. He freezes when a hand stops on his shoulder, but follows the hand back up to Steve’s face.

Steve’s face, which is doing a Concerned Thing, while his improbably gigantic hand holds Clint by the shoulder.

No, okay, why is this his life? He’s not awake enough for this. (He’s not sure being awake would help, really, in the face of this development, the genuine worry and touching combo, but like… it couldn’t hurt? The universe could have waited to do this to him, is all he’s saying. Fuck.)

“You should stop having coffee,” Steve says, and that cuts through some of Clint’s bewilderment.

“No way.”

“You’re literally shaking.”

Clint can’t deny that; he doesn’t even try. “Well, yeah,” he agrees. “But I’m also standing, so it’s totally working.”

Steve looks pained. “Please don’t kill yourself. Just…” He trails off and takes a deep breath. “Call Darcy and ask her to come in early? For me.”

Clint wants to say no, but he’s kind of afraid Steve will stand here all day and argue with him about it if he does. Spending a day arguing with Steve Rogers isn’t something he’d normally complain about, but he doesn’t know he’s got in in him today.

He deflates. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and the backtracks. “Wait, no, you tell her to come in early.”

“What? Why me?” Steve’s look of bafflement is priceless. Clint wants to take a picture.

He pulls his phone out and totally takes a picture. Steve’s face pulls from confusion to a reproachful glare before he can snap it, but that’s almost as good. “That’ll be your contact photo,” he decides, carefully cropping it. “But, yeah, Darcy can’t say no to you, it’s, like, unconstitutional or something, and you’re the one that wants her to come in early, so you can deal with her being grumpy about being awake at this hour.”

“That was… a lot of words,” Steve says after a moment. “But, sure, fine, whatever. Pull up her number.”

Clint does as asked and hands it over, a little bit gleeful in waiting.

“Hello,” Steve says after a moment, voice polite and charming in response to what the screeching even Clint can hear. “This is Steve Rogers.” The screeching cuts off.

The conversation is anticlimactically short. Steve mostly just asks her to come in early, and she must agree, because he thanks her and hangs up.

“There,” he says, but he doesn’t hand back the phone. He’s doing something with it, but Clint’s not too bothered about it at the moment. When he hands it back, Clint sees it pulled up to a new contact page with Steve’s name and a number underneath it. He’s even added the contact photo.

“Oh,” Clint says dumbly. “Wait, you didn’t have to, just because I said—”

“I wouldn’t give it to you if I didn’t want you to have it,” Steve cuts him off. “You think people don’t ask for my number all day long?”

“Oh,” Clint says again. “Okay then. I’ll… text you?”

Steve laughs softly. “I’d like that,” he agrees. “Maybe we could hang out some time outside of here?”

“Uh, sure,” Clint says, brain trying to catch up with what’s happening. Is Steve flirting with him? Is he being asked out? It kind of sounds like it, but also it’s Steve, and Clint is himself, and it’s probably just a friends thing. “Yeah, that would be cool,” he says, because even as friends, that means hanging out with Steve Rogers.

“Okay then,” Steve says warmly. “Hang in there until Darcy gets in.”

“I will,” Clint agrees. “I’ll see you, um, around.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Bye, Clint.”

Then he’s gone, and Clint’s alone in his store, where he can groan aloud and bury his head in his hands.

What even is going on here? He knows what Darcy would say—knows what Darcy will say when he tells her—but what he really needs is for Natasha to tell him what’s happening and what he should do about it. He wouldn’t listen to her, most likely, because he’s a disaster and he knows it, but it would at least be nice to know what he should do.

He mostly paces and repeats the horrendously awkward end of their conversation in his head until Darcy stalks in looking ten seconds from murder. She clocks Clint and her murder glare increases. “You didn’t even sleep with Captain America and make him call me to take over because you were too exhausted from him fucking your brains out, did you?”

“Uh,” Clint says, a little distracted by the mental image now playing in his head. “Sadly, no.”

“Then fuck off and take a nap in the back room,” she says on a sigh. “I’m very disappointed in you.”

“Well damn, now I’m disappointed in me too,” he mutters, but he takes off his apron and goes to do as she says. “Thanks, by the way.”

“Whatever,” she dismisses, shooing him away. “You can repay me by tapping that and telling me all about it.”

Clint opens his mouth to tell her how unlikely that is and then closes it. “Sure, whatever,” he settles on. “Wake me in a few hours.”

“Sure, whatever,” she mimics, and Clint’s done.

He’s going to sleep. And when he wakes up, everything will make more sense.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated!! (It's my birthday tomorrow, and I accept comments as gifts!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updates, life got hectic! Thanks to Mar for beta-ing and cheerleading and generally being the best!

Clint wakes up on the awful couch in the back store room slash break room, his neck sore but his head pounding less angrily. He can actually think again, too, somewhat clearly even, so that’s a plus.

He pulls his hearing aids off of a nearby box he’d stashed them on top of, so they wouldn’t get accidentally crushed, and slips them in.

He can faintly hear music from out in the shop, but he can’t make it out, not that he has any particular vested interest in knowing what Darcy’s playing. That there’s music playing at all means it probably isn’t too late, and Clint can take over and send her home early in thanks for covering for him.

But first, he’s going to take a few minutes to wake up. Minutes that quickly become swallowed up pondering the question: did this morning actually happen? Followed immediately by: how is Steve Rogers even  _ real? _

Clint digs his phone out of his pocket and blinks at the screen. No missed calls or texts. Not like he’d  _ expected  _ Steve to text him, or anything.

Then his brain reaches the part of its replay of the morning in which Steve had given Clint his number, and oh.  _ Oh.  _ Clint hadn’t given Steve his number in return. He pulls up his recent texts, and the last one is to Natasha, who’s away on mission but will see it when she’s back, just a stupid comment about The Bachelor because she hates missing it and probably appreciates his live-texting. Probably.

The point being, Steve hadn’t texted himself so he’d have Clint’s number. He’s probably too noble for that or something. Clint rolls his eyes and ignores how fond the gesture feels.

He opens a new text and selects Steve’s contact, the funny—adorable—picture and all, and types out,  _ Hey, it’s Clint. Just letting you know I’m no longer a zombie. Apocalypse averted. _

__

He hits send before it hits him that maybe joking about the apocalypse with someone who regularly saves the world is a dumb choice. (Well, someone who regularly saves the world and isn’t Natasha; she likes joking about the end of the world. It’s, like, stress relief or something.)

As he’s deciding whether or not to get worked up about the text, his phone buzzes to let him know a new message has come in, and Steve’s reply pops up a moment later.

_ Glad to hear it. I’m not sure how well the serum holds up against zombie bites/viruses. _

__

Clint snorts inelegantly. God, that’s dumb humor on par with his own.

He favorites the text to save it from being accidentally deleted before pushing to his feet and stumbling out of the back room and into the too-bright light of the afternoon, in order to 1) obtain enough caffeine to kill an elephant, and 2) possibly relieve Darcy of her post. In that order specifically.

\--

Steve ends up away on a mission for a few days, fighting velociraptors in South America. It’s all very Jurassic Park, not that Steve gets the reference when Clint makes it.

And Clint gets to make that reference when it’s still relevant, because texting is a  _ thing  _ now.

He is absolutely not agonizing over it, because he never has a problem running his mouth, and that’s never been different over text.

(Except it’s maybe a little different when he’s texting  _ Steve,  _ because he maybe actually cares what Steve thinks of him.

But he won’t admit to that, and no one can make him. So,  _ there.) _

__

In the meantime, Clint’s refused to show Darcy his text conversations because that’s an invasion of privacy,  _ not  _ because he doesn’t want her to make fun of his flirting. Not that he’s actually flirting, but once Darcy gets an idea in her stubborn head, it’s unshakeable, and she’s convinced Clint is flirting.

Clint thinks his protest that there’s no reason to flirt because Steve’s so far out of his league he might as well be in another galaxy should be enough to sway even Darcy. But Darcy just fires back that she doesn’t believe in leagues—spoken like a true eleven, god, what kind of privileged bullshit—and continues to pester him every time his phone goes off.

And like, yeah, okay, 99% of the time it  _ is  _ Steve, but he’s not telling her that. Then she’d be even more insufferable.

Clint’s favorite part of the day comes to be the early mornings, when he only has to chat with regulars, answer infrequent texts from Steve, and has all the time in the world to consider one very important thing.

When Steve gets back, they’re going to  _ hang out.  _ It’s been mentioned. Like, multiple times. Mostly in passing; like, when Steve doesn’t know about Jurassic Park and Clint asks how everyone in his life has let him down so thoroughly by failing to introduce him to one of the greatest series of movies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Steve just says,  _ maybe you should pick up their slack, then. _

Which, well. If anyone else said that to Clint, he’d be pretty sure they were flirting. Like, he’s oblivious, but he’s not  _ that  _ oblivious.

But this is Steve Rogers, who is a galaxy away from Clint’s league, and so instead Clint’s just a hopeless pile of UST and longing who can’t stop anxiously planning not-dates.

\--

When Clint shows up at 3:45 am to start opening the shop, he pulls up short when he sees a figure leaning against the wall near the front door. He tenses, wondering if he’s going to have to fight someone and if he’s out of practice enough to lose—he hasn’t sparred with Nat in weeks because she’s been gone, but he hasn’t stopped working out, so probably not—when he realizes it’s just Steve. He’s slouched, so he looks a bit shorter if no less imposing, and the hood of his sweatshirt is covering his golden hair, probably in an effort to keep it from gleaming in the dull light of the street lamps.

“Hey,” Clint calls softly. He stops short a dozen feet away at the mouth of the alley that houses the back door to the shop.

Steve looks up and over, and the dim light is enough to illuminate the smile that crosses his face when he sees Clint.

Clint thinks maybe that smile could make its own light if it needed to, through sheer force of radiant sincerity, and seriously, Steve Rogers’ entire being should be considered a public hazard, not for the strength factor but because he’s just so damn  _ pure. _

What he means is that this is more than Clint should have to deal with on one cup of coffee. It’s 3 am and Steve is wearing a hoodie. He shouldn’t be able to make Clint have  _ feelings  _ at this hour. It’s unfair.

Steve stands up to his full height and waves awkwardly at Clint. “Sorry, it’s, uh, early,” he says, like he’s just now noticing the time of day. “I’ll come back in a couple hours.”

Clint rolls his eyes. “C’mon.” He gestures to the alley before heading down it himself, trusting Steve to follow.

Steve must hesitate, because he doesn’t catch up to Clint until he’s pulling the door open and switching on the light to the back room. “Are you sure this is okay?” Steve asks even as he’s following Clint inside and allowing Clint to pull the door closed behind them.

And, well. Tired Clint has two settings: nonverbal and hyperverbal. No filter comes with either option.

“Yep,” he says, because it’s a nonverbal tired kind of day and words are a lot. But he reaches out and touches Steve’s arm, just a brief acknowledgement as he moves past him and out into the main shop. It must communicate enough of his intent, though, because Steve’s right on his heels as he goes.

Clint goes about getting everything stocked and swept and brewed and generally in order, and Steve hovers awkwardly. “You can sit,” Clint tells him eventually.

“I could help?” Steve counter-offers.

Clint rolls his eyes. He finishes off his second cup of coffee, and, hey, he can feel the ability to make words slot into place. It’s like a switch flicks in his brain: off, and now on. “If you’re offering free labor, then I’m definitely not charging you for your coffee.”

“Like that’s a change,” Steve shoots back, and takes over wiping down the counter for Clint before heading over to do the same to the surface of the tables.

Thanks to Steve’s help, the shop is ready a full half hour before opening. Clint absolutely has  _ the  _ coffee today, too, number one on his spreadsheet of ideas, so he brews a quick pour over. While he’s at it, he snags his third cup of the day from one of the large daily brews, just a vanilla flavored medium roast, because he’s not picky.

He presents Steve with his coffee and waits expectantly. His anticipation is so great that he does not even take a sip of his own coffee while he waits. This is too important.

Steve rolls his eyes, but he looks good natured about it. “It’s too hot.”

Clint rolls his eyes back. “So? Your tongue cells will heal in like ten minutes.”

“That doesn’t make it any smarter to burn them off.”

Clint raises an eyebrow. “I burn mine off all the time. It’s just coffee, not molten lava.”

He can see in the straightening of Steve’s shoulders that he takes that for the challenge it absolutely is. “Fine, but when it does permanent damage, I’m suing you.” Before Clint can do more than laugh, he takes a gulp, which, no, is  _ not  _ the optimal way to taste coffee, but Clint will pick his battles here.

“Oh,” Steve says, looking down at the cup. “That’s… good?”

“Yes!” Clint just barely remembers to place his coffee down on the counter before he does a fist pump of victory, and then a whole victory dance, because he’s  _ done it again. _

“What is it?” Steve asks, eyebrows raised as he watches Clint make a fool of himself.

“No way,” Clint protests. “If I tell you, you can buy it and then you’ll have no reason to come here.”

“No reason, huh?” Steve asks, a small smirk—a smirk! Is Captain America allowed to smirk?—tugging up the corner of his lips.

“Nope,” Clint says, popping the p obnoxiously.

Steve looks somewhere between fond and exasperated. “Are you really not going to tell me?”

And it is in this moment that Clint realizes he  _ is  _ flirting with Steve, probably has been all along, because he opens his mouth to say,  _ I’m sure you could find a way to convince me to tell you,  _ and yes, it is going to be laden with as much innuendo as Clint can pack into one sentence.

Fuck.

“Uh,” Clint says intelligibly. Then, because he can’t say  _ those  _ words, obviously, he says, “It’s coffee from Hawai’i.”

“Oh,” Steve says. He looks down at the coffee and takes another sip. “I’ve never been to Hawai’i.”

Clint’s on autopilot now, and he almost spits out the first thing he thinks of, which is,  _ we should go,  _ and, oh god, at this rate something embarrassing and flirty is going to slip out and Steve’s going to revoke his offer of friendship because Clint’s too much of a disaster to bother with.

The thing is. Clint was okay with lusting after Captain America in an objective way—in a, like, yeah, he’s hot like burning, but he’s also ultimately unattainable and that’s okay, way—but then he started to get to know  _ Steve. _

Steve, who is kind of a dork but also kind of an asshole, who takes his snark and his dumb jokes and matches them, and Clint’s, well. Clint’s never done anything by halves, and that includes developing  _ feelings. _

“Uh, so, what brought you here this early?” He realizes, abruptly, that he got caught up in his head and never replied to Steve’s comment. Shit.

Steve appears unbothered by the change in subject. “We got in around midnight, and I didn’t feel like sleeping. We ordered pizza and everyone else passed out, but I was just…” He shrugs. “I thought I’d come say hi. See if you wanted to hang out some time soon.”

Clint almost points out that Steve could have asked him that over text, but he catches himself. “Oh, yeah,” he says, trying for casual, like he hasn’t been thinking about the potential for their is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-date these last few days in every spare moment. “Yeah, totally. Any ideas what you’d want to do?”

Steve shrugs again. “I don’t really know what people do for fun these days.”

Clint considers that. “Watch TV. Play video games.” He tries to think of more. “Uh… read books?”

“I meant group activities,” Steve clarifies.

“Video games can be a group activity.”

“Clint.”

Clint shrugs. “I dunno, Steve, I mostly volunteer to take shelter dogs for walks in my free time.” Well, that and practice his archery—but if he saw Steve shooting a bow, he might spontaneously combust from lust.

Then again.

He realizes that Steve with shelter dogs probably wouldn’t be much better right around the time Steve lights up. “I love dogs!”

Oh yeah. He’s doomed. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought / if you liked it! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks yet again to Mar for her excellent beta work! I hope y'all enjoy the not-date!

 

They plan their not-date for a Thursday.

 

Clint’s prepared to be worked up all day until he gets off shift, meets Steve, and they head off to one of the local shelters—Clint’s favorite, TLC Rescue.

 

But before Darcy can even come in and give him a knowing look, Steve’s striding through the door—at 9 am, _much_ too early for their 3 pm meet up time.

 

“You that desperate for coffee, Rogers?” Clint asks when Steve makes it to the front of the line.

 

Steve opens his mouth, closes it, _blushes,_ and says, “Nah, just thought I’d hang out somewhere that wasn’t the Tower for a while. I can always wander if you’re too busy, though?”

 

“Nah, you’re always welcome here,” Clint assures him, trying not to be excited that apparently _he’s_ Steve’s first port of call when he’s feel stir crazy—or, at least, his coffee shop is. He’ll take it.

 

He’s busy for another half hour or so, and Steve takes a seat near the front and sips his coffee while he watches Clint make drinks for customers. The line is gone by the time it starts to near ten o’clock, and mostly the people left in the shop are the ones who like to hang around—with laptops, with books, munching pastries while on their phones.

 

“What’s this song?” Steve asks.

 

“Oh, it’s an older one—well, for Darcy, at least,” Clint tells him. That leads to them trying to find music Steve might like, Clint scrolling through not only Darcy’s Approved Playlists but also his own picks for the shop, the only rule being that once they put on a song, they have to let it play all the way through.

 

They learn that Steve likes Coldplay, which is _weird,_ but whatever, and that he _hates_ pretty much all 90’s rock.

 

They waste away hours that way, until the lunch rush hits, and Steve mostly sits out of the way while Clint deals with it.

 

Darcy comes in just before the lunch rush and makes _meaningful eye contact_ with Clint about the song game, but Clint’s having too much fun to care. He’ll deal with her and her ridiculous notions later; this is Steve Time.

 

Once the lunch rush is officially over, and it’s been more or less dead for fifteen minutes, Darcy rolls her eyes at Clint and says, “Go on, go ahead and leave. Get lunch with Steve or something. I can handle the shop just fine on my own.”

 

“You sure?”

 

She narrows her eyes at him. “Are you doubting my ability to hold down the fort on my own?”

 

“Nope,” he says instantly, because she has a taser and she knows how to use it. “See ya, Darce.”

 

He drops his apron in the back room and comes out to join Steve, who is finishing off his third coffee of the day—and yes, Clint is _thrilled_ that he likes the coffee enough to drink multiple cups, even if Steve did concede on the third cup to try something else off of Clint’s spreadsheet. Just because they’ve found something he likes, that doesn’t mean Clint’s done making Steve try things.

 

“Where did you want to get lunch?” Clint asks as they head out. He has the urge to take Steve’s hand, and he shoves his hands in his pockets so he won’t accidentally act on it.

 

Steve shrugs. “I dunno, what are you in the mood for?”

 

“Pizza,” Clint tells him instantly.

 

Steve clearly knows Clint too well, because he raises an eyebrow. “What did you have for breakfast?”

 

“…cold pizza,” Clint admits after a moment.

 

Steve laughs. “Do you ever eat vegetables?”

 

“There’s vegetables on pizza!”

 

“So, no. There’s a good Mediterranean place near here. If you like it, that is.”

 

“You’re just trying to sneak me vegetables,” Clint grumbles, but he bumps Steve’s shoulder with his own and sighs in an over-exaggerated manner. “I suppose,” he agrees. “But only because shawarma is fucking awesome.”

 

Lunch is phenomenal; Clint finds himself glad Steve’s thoroughly scouted out the area and found the best places, because Clint’s never bothered. There’s decent pizza a couple blocks up from his shop, and  Chinese places that deliver both to the coffee shop and to his apartment respectively, so he’s pretty set.

 

But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to branch out.

 

Only with Steve, though.

 

“Okay, the rescue is expecting us any time this afternoon,” Clint tells Steve. “You’ll have to fill out some paperwork, but there shouldn’t be any problem with them letting you at least join me in taking out a couple of dogs, both because I’m vouching for you and because you’re literally Captain America.”

 

“I don’t want special treatment—” Steve starts.

 

“It’s not special treatment, they just already know most of the things they’d need to get from a background check. It’s no one’s fault you’re famous.”

 

“I guess,” Steve says, not sounding thrilled about it.

 

Clint rolls his eyes. “It’s fine, they’ve let Nat join me on walks before, too. And their background check on her probably didn’t reveal much.”

 

“Nat?”

 

Clint realizes, for the first time, that Steve might not _know_ he’s Natasha’s best friend. “Oh, um, Black Widow?”

 

“You know Black Widow?” Steve sounds confused, but not upset, so, tentative win?

 

“Uh, yeah, she’s my best friend? We used to be partners in SHIELD, before I retired and opened up the coffee shop.”

 

“Retired? But you’re… young.” 

 

“Yeah, but, y’know, being an agent is an even younger man’s game. I don’t want to die as many times as James Bond should have, y’know? Or any times, really.” Clint shuts his mouth on the word vomit that’s coming out and contemplates the likelihood of the earth swallowing him whole. Unlikely, maybe, yes, but not _impossible._ Nothing’s impossible these days, not after aliens invaded New York and Tony Stark flew a nuke into space. Now things are just _improbable._

 

Steve huffs a small laugh—okay, that goes in the win column too. “I’m just surprised,” he says. “I thought I was the only Avenger you know, and that you were…”

 

“A civilian?” Clint says.

 

“Well, not that,” Steve concedes. “You hold yourself too carefully for that. You’re always aware of where every person in the room is. But—I didn’t know you were ex-SHIELD, specifically.”

 

Clint rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to not tell you. I kinda figured you found my place because SHIELD people were talking about it or something.” He can kind of see how that would be upsetting--Steve, thinking he was making a friend outside of the SHIELD and Avengers world, finding out that Clint’s actually connected to all of it at least a little bit. 

 

“It’s okay,” Steve tells him. When Clint glances over at him, Steve says, “Really, it is.”

 

“Okay,” Clint agrees after a moment. “Cool. Dogs, then?”

 

“Dogs,” Steve agrees, a soft smile on his face.

 

He’s probably just smiling because they’re about to see dogs. Dogs always make Clint smile, too.

 

\--

 

As Clint predicted, the shelter is fairly chill about letting Steve join Clint to walk a couple of dogs. They are less chill about making sure Steve fills out all of the proper paperwork. Steve is absolutely mollified when they ask if they can run a background check on him. He is, in fact, beaming as they’re led back to the kennels.

 

“We just have one fella who’s desperate for a walk today,” Caitlyn, one of the rescue workers, tells them. “He’s a new guy, his name’s Lucky.”

 

“Why Lucky?” Steve asks.

 

“Oh, well, he got hit by a car, but someone found him and took him to the vet. He got all fixed up and got a spot here at our shelter, which makes him one _lucky_ guy.” Cait’s using her talking-to-patrons voice, the one she’s given up on with Clint because he’s around so often, and it’s kind of amusing.

 

When Clint sees the dog, though, he lights up extra. “Oh! He’s the one I rescued!”

 

Cait looks surprised by this news. “Oh, that’s great,” she says, voice normal now. “I bet he already likes you, then.”

 

“I bet he likes everyone,” Clint shoots back, because that is the happiest, dopiest dog he’s ever seen. He’s enamored. Possibly even more enamored than he is with every other dog he sees, but, well. It’s a hard call—he _really_ likes dogs.

 

Still. Cait opens the kennel door and Lucky bounds straight for Clint, jumping up to give him the dog equivalent of a hug and attempt to lick Clint’s face. Clint’s too tall for that, just he drops to his knees obligingly, letting Lucky lick him all over.

 

When he glances over at Steve, one eye shut for safety as Lucky’s broad tongue licks at that side of his face, Steve’s smiling that soft smile again. Clint’s heart does a little flip, and he internally commands it to cut that shit out.

 

“Isn’t he the best?” Clint asks Steve happily.

 

“He’s pretty great,” Steve agrees.

 

Cait hands over a leash for Lucky, and they head out. Lucky’s practically vibrating with excitement, tail going like he’s a helicopter taking off. As they walk, Clint keeps up a stream of running conversation with Lucky, about everything he’s sniffing and how good of a boy he is, and when he glances up at Steve, he says, “Sorry, this must be kind of boring for you.”

 

“No,” Steve says. “This is fun. I like walks. I like dogs. I like you. Three of my favorite things all in one, what else could I need?”

 

Clint hopes the heat of the day explains away the blush on his skin, but—favorite things? Clint’s one of Steve’s _favorite_ things? “Oh, cool,” he says weakly. “Want to hold the leash?”

 

“I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed,” Steve says.

 

Clint rolls his eyes, but all he says is, “Okay. The park’s just a couple blocks up, c’mon.”

 

At the park, Clint doesn’t let Lucky off the leash, because he doesn’t know if Lucky’s trained to come when called—does Lucky even know his own name yet? If he didn’t before, he probably does now with the amount of time Clint’s spent addressing him by it.

 

Steve gets them coffees from a vendor, and Clint sips at his gratefully. “How many cups is that today?” Steve asks.

 

Clint takes another sip, leash looped around his arm and grateful that Lucky is a good boy who waits patiently, not tugging at the leash at all. “My sixth,” Clint says.

 

Steve winces. “You’re going to have a heart attack.”

 

Clint shrugs. “But, coffee. Good way to go.”

 

Steve takes a sip of his own coffee and winces again.

 

“Lemme guess,” Clint says. “It’s ‘fine’.”

 

“It’s not even good enough to be fine,” Steve tells him. “I’d give it to you, but I don’t want to further aid in your untimely demise. Didn’t you retire specifically to stay alive longer?”

 

Clint shrugs. “Okay, I’ll amend that. I retired to die in a pleasant way, like from drinking too much coffee, rather than from gunshots or being eaten by aliens.”

 

“You might still be eaten by aliens as a regular citizen,” Steve points out, and then says, “Wait, I shouldn’t have said that.”

 

Clint laughs. “Well, it’s kinda true.”

 

They walk around the park and chat about movies, slowly building a list of things Steve might actually _want_ to see based around the ones everyone’s told him he _should._ Clint describes every movie as vaguely yet elaborately as possible—they’ve got a yes on Jurrassic Park, a no on Transformers (“who told you that?” Clint demands, offended, only for Steve to say, “Tony says he likes to get drunk and watch the bad science”), maybe on Terminator, and on and on.

 

“You’re going to watch some of these with me, right?” Steve asks.

 

“Do you want me to?” Clint’s not above fishing for a compliment, let’s be real. But who wouldn’t want to hear Steve say he liked spending time with them? No one, that’s who. Well, maybe a villain or something, but—only someone with poor(er than Clint) judgement.

 

“Yeah,” Steve says. He’s _blushing_ again—it’s a score in the date half of the date vs not-date tally Clint’s absolutely not running in the back of his mind. “It gets kinda lonely watching all this stuff alone, and Thor’s off-world, and Banner and Stark are always busy in their labs.”

 

“You gotta have team nights,” Clint says. “You’ll never be a cohesive team otherwise.”

 

“That’s what _I_ said,” Steve says, sounding way more like a vindicated person who likes to say I-told-you-so than anyone would believe from Captain America. And, case in point, _exactly_ like the Steve Rogers that Clint has come to know and like.

 

“You’re team leader. Enforce it. Movie nights. That’s a bonding activity. You guys can have dinner beforehand, that’s like. A date, but for teammates.”

 

“But you’ll still watch movies with me, right?” Steve asks. “I’ll even buy you pizza first.”

 

Clint clutches at his chest. “Be still my beating heart!” he loudly exclaims. A few people glance their way, but then quickly get bored in true New Yorker fashion. “Pizza is the best way to get me to agree. So yeah, of course.”

 

Steve looks quietly pleased, but he changes the subject back to movies. Yes on Back to the Future, no on Jaws, maybe on Star Wars—until they’re sprawled on the grass with Lucky rolling around next to them, big tongue hanging out of his mouth.

 

They eventually end up just talking about Steve’s teammates—what Clint knows from his time as a SHIELD agent and all the gossip he acquires, what Steve’s impressions of them are right now, and how they diverge. They don’t talk about Natasha, but only because Clint says she’d gut him for spilling her secrets, and anything that she doesn’t allow someone to know or perceive about her is classified as a secret.

 

Plus, you know, Clint knows her too well and respects her too much to gossip about her. Stark, though? Clint’s grateful he saved the entire city of New York, but he’s _prime_ gossip material.

 

Lucky eventually moves from his rolling around so that he’s instead splayed on Clint’s chest where he can nose at Clint’s neck and cheek to his heart’s content.

 

“Do you have any dogs?” Steve asks.

 

“Nah,” Clint says. “I love ‘em, but I’ve never had one of my own.”

 

“You should get one. You’re good with them.”

 

“You’ve seen me with literally this one dog, Steve.”

 

“So get this one, then.” Steve turns to address Lucky. “Wouldn’t you like that, boy?” he asks in that _voice_ that everyone uses to talk to dogs—the one that’s usually annoying, _should_ be annoying, but is somehow endearing when it’s Steve doing it. “Don’t you want to go home with Clint?”

 

Clint snorts even as Lucky’s tail starts wagging happily now that he’s being addressed. “Low, going for the dog. But like… I dunno. Would I even be good for him?” Clint’s wanted a dog, yeah, but… “I’m gone for long hours for work, and I wouldn’t want to leave him alone.”

 

Steve shrugs. “Probably most people who adopt him would leave him alone for work. But, couldn’t you take him with you?”

 

Clint blinks. “I… guess I could? Yeah? Huh.” He considers it. Lucky seems friendly; he’s been perfectly polite to every kid and excited adult who has asked to pet him, and he seems thrilled with the attention. He follows the leash well and listens when Clint tells him no—Clint doesn’t really know what more he could want from a dog.

 

“Plus,” Steve says, voice a bit more subdued, “he’s got one eye, Clint. He might be at that shelter for ages while all the younger dogs and the dogs without special needs get taken in first.”

 

“That’s bullshit,” Clint says instantly. “He’s just as good as any other dog.”

 

“And the fact that you see that is exactly why you should adopt him.”

 

Clint kind of hates the corner Steve has backed him into—master tactician indeed, fuck. “And what will I do with him on our movie nights, hm?”

 

Steve grins. “Bring him. Who cares?”

 

“Uh, Tony Stark, the guy who owns the Tower you live in, _might_ care.”

 

Steve shrugs. “I’ll say he’s my dog too. We can be co-owners. I’ll take him if you don’t want him in the shop for some reason, and I can take him for runs while you’re working, and he can come to movie nights too. It’ll be great.”

 

“What if Tony says you can’t have a dog?”

 

Steve shrugs. “I dunno. Need a roommate?”

 

Clint gapes. “You’d just—move out? Over a dog?”

 

“Over _our_ dog,” Steve says. “C’mon. Admit it’s a great idea.”

 

It’s not the worst idea.

 

Clint _really_ likes dogs.

 

Clint _really_ likes Lucky.

 

Clint really _doesn’t_ like telling Steve no.

 

“Yeah, fuck, okay,” Clint relents. “We’re getting a dog, I guess? Fuck.” He looks down at Lucky and strokes over his head, looking him dead in his one eye. “You okay with that, boy? You want to live with us?”

 

Lucky lets out a deep sigh, but it seems like a content one, not a sad one, so Clint decides that’s the affirmation he needs. “Okay. We’re doing this.”

 

And that’s how Clint ends his first not-date no surer as to whether or not it was a date, but having absolutely gained possession of the best dog in the world. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the update! Let me know what you thought <3

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super jazzed about this fic--I literally already have a sequel planned and I haven't even finished this one yet--and it felt like time to yeet it out into the world, even though I've got a million other things that probably need updating instead. That said, idk how soon I'll have an update for this, BUT rest assured that finals are almost over and I'm excited to just relax and write fic for a couple weeks before I have to start being academic again. 
> 
> I live on comments, and it's my first time writing this pairing, so I'm like 2x as desperate to know I'm not horribly messing it up. But also I just like knowing which of my jokes land, so let me know what you think!
> 
> Bingo fill: coffee shop


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